OLYMPICS TIME : Jamaica’s athletes chase Olympic Games qualification Ja’s athletes vie for places to Olympic Games as SVL National Championships begin

Thursday, June 30, 2016    

The journey to Olympic glory continues in earnest today as athletes hunt spots to the Rio Olympics during the four-day Supreme Ventures Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association National Senior Championship at the National Stadium.

The great Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will lead an array of stars and potential stars who will be hoping to punch their tickets to Brazil for the 31st Olympiad between August 5 and 21.

The Jamaican Senior Championships will be used to select the national team, and unlike the IAAF World Championships, no wild cards are available. Thus, every single athlete will have to be at their optimum to secure one of three spots to the greatest show on Earth.

The rivalry will be intense and exciting and The men’s 100m qualifying event will kick off the proceedings at 10:00 am with six heats of which the seven fastest runners will advance to the quarter-final in which the big guns Bolt, Asafa Powell, Yohan Blake, Kemar Bailey-Cole, Michael Frater, Warren Weir, and Nickel Ashmeade are expected to be in action at 7:00 pm.

Bolt, the greatest sprinter in the history of the sport, will be hunting an unprecedented tree gold medals in three consecutive Olympics, but first, he must safely navigate his way through the Jamaican Championships.

Double Olympic 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will also be hunting a three consecutive 100m titles and her quest begins in the women’s 100m heats slated to start at 6:40 pm.

Fraser-Pryce has been drawn in heat three alongside 2015 World Championship finalist Natasha Morrison of Fast Twitch Track Club and overseas-based Remona Burchell, two athletes that could be in the final eight on Friday.

World Championship 200m silver medallist Elaine Thompson, of MVP, is considered the main treat to Fraser-Pryce, and she will be in heat five alongside Jura Levy of Sprintec.

Double 200m Olympic champion Veronica Campbell-Brown (VCB) is drawn in heat four and has most to fear from Sprintec’s Gayon Evans, the powerfully built Carrie Russell of MVP, and Sashalee Forbes of GC Foster College. the eyes of the world will be anxiously waiting to see what transpires in the sprint capital of the world. more